I'm up to something

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I get it it. You work in a specialty retail store. I go to those sometimes. While I wouldn’t say that you sell anything cheap, you’ve got a range of products that appeal from the casual devotee to the types of people that are referred to in movies about Las Vegas as large marine mammals.

I get that I don’t fit the demographic of those latter, most profitable customers. Hell, I’m probably too ignorant of what goes into the products that you sell to even fit into the former category. But here’s the thing, I had something to celebrate this week. And I wanted a damn cigar.

I could have grabbed something from the “humidor” box at any of a dozen “TOBACCO” stores that I drive my everyday, but as someone who tries to have an appreciation for those things in life that can be appreciated, I wanted better. And I was willing to pay for quality, and for good service and the benefit of your years of experience to help me find the one thing that was right for me.

Obviously, I wasn’t there to spend hundreds of dollars with you. But, I didn’t want to waste your time. I walked in your (smelly) door, intending to make a purchase. I hadn’t done too much research, but I’d put some thought into what I like (I’m a chocolate, malty beer, and fatty steak kind of girl), and how I thought the cigar that I might end up liking would pair with such things. And you’d know that, if you had been willing to spend more than 30 seconds making the sale yesterday.

You know, maybe that $9 number that you pulled off the top shelf and handed to me without asking anything about my tastes will, in fact, be the ultimate cigar experience for me (I’ll admit it, it smells yummy). But would it have hurt you to explain why you thought I would like it? Or tell me something about the product? Or how it compares to others that you have in stock — I was willing to spend more, after all?

So, the good news is, you made your (under $10) sale. I think you’ve guessed the bad news by now. As a girl with tastes that admittedly tend to run more “masculine”, I’m pretty used to dealing with employees who might have a bias against me before I open my mouth. But the trick with all those “boy” stores that I loveandkeepgoingback to? Their employees don’t treat me like I don’t belong there. They offer help if it looks like I need it, they listen when I have questions or ideas that I want to run by them, and they realize that I’m a good customer who wants to learn from them, even as she buys from them. Sure, they might treat women like idiots sometimes…but only the ones who deserve it. The upshot is that those little $10 purchases that I might have started out with? Have lead to hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in purchases over the years, plus positive recommendations to my friends.

CSE, this could have been a wonderful friendship, you could have been a contender. Seriously, I’m sure that there will be a time in my life when I do need/want to drop some serious money on high-end tobacco products. But it won’t be with you guys.

After work today, I headed out to knitting club (sometimes I can’t get over the fact that a few years ago, I would have killed myself if I realized that I’d actually look forward to sitting around with a bunch of girls and chatting, but I love it, so fuck how lame it sounds), followed by a trip to my favorite bar.Â Nate seemed somewhat concerned about his performance at the 90s on Friday, which was Ã¼bercute.Â His behaviour was pretty innocent (as far as drunken trips to gay bars go) I know I’ve done far worse at the Saloon (though that was during my transition period).
I’ve decided that one of the things that I’d like to work on wrt being a better me is to be more open and honest.Â I tend to hide my feelings a lot, and I have a morbid fear of telling people things that they don’t want to hear.Â That’s one of the reasons why I have trouble figuring out content for here – there’s always someone who I don’t want to tell about any given item, so the item doesn’t get posted, so eventually nothing gets posted.Â This week, I’m going to do my best to tell a certain someone something that he may not want to hear. I’m really phobic of rejection to the point where I don’t want to put anyone through it, but leading people on makes me a bad person and it needs to stop.Â I’m trying to figure out how I would want to hear the news were the situation reversed but it’s difficult – my fear of being unwanted means that I never put myself in a postion where I can be rejected (there was a close call about a month ago, but I think I recovered before the object of my affection clued in, also: I know this isn’t healthy – but one issue at a time pls people).
Bleh.Â Anyways, I’m trying to come up with something better than “you’re awesome, but…”Â I can’t use the “I’m not ready for a relationship line”, since that’s not really true anymore – if the right person comes along, I think I’m ready, I just know that this guy, as amazing as he is, isn’t for me.Â Nor me for him for that matter.
On a happier note, I’m going to be starting up a knitblog, so that IÂ can post pretty pictures of the stuff I’m working on (and hopefully motivate myself to get more done).Â I’ll post about it on my other page once I get my new camera.Â I’m torn between the Canon SD800 and SD900 right now – though pricewise, the SD900 seems to be winning out, at the moment.

One of the knitting bloggers that I started reading when I got back into knitting again last year was Crazy Aunt Purl.Â I can’t remember how I found her site, I think I might have seen a link somewhere and fell in love with the title, but I’m glad I did.Â She doesn’t actually talk about knitting very often, but she is a very good writer and her posts are always either hilariously funny, or touchingly sweet, and often both.

She’s getting a mention this morning because yesterday would have been my 4th anniversary with Doucheboi, so I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I ended up in that mess of a relationship, and how I let it go on for so long.Â She must have been reading my mind or something because she chose yesterday to talk about how sheÂ ended up withÂ her version of Doucheboi.Â The main theme of her story is the same as mine – she found some one who was “good enough”, who seemed to care about her and make her feel special, he wasn’t everything that she wanted (nor was she everything to him), but he was there, and known, and comfortable, and so she settled.Â Just like I did.

I’m an engineer.Â I’m no good with emotions, and I’m terrible with words.Â I’ve learned a lot over the past 4 years about what love doesn’t feel like and that compromising my desires for the sake of what’s available and easy and safe feeling isn’t worth it. I guess what I (and CAP) am trying to say is: take risks – it’s ok to get hurt, just because you don’t know what you want doesn’t mean you need to be stuck with what you know you don’t want, and never, ever, ever, settle – you deserve better.

Hedonist: Buying 4 boxes of Samoas – not “Caramel Delites”… Samoas, the good stuff. Hand delivered today by the oh-so-cute daughter of a co-worker.

Prudent: Sharing one box with team mates at work (I swear, I ate less than half!), labelling 2 of them with future dates and giving them to B. with instructions NOT to give them to me until the appropriate date. Leaving me with only 1 box, which I will hold out as long as possible before opening.

Then again, there is the concept alluded to by this post title, which I guess would be better than most cookies…

I still think that the ultimate short term investment would be to order about 100 cases of Girl Scout Cookies (all flavours), sticking em in a freezer to keep them fresh, and then selling them on eBay around november/december-ish when everyone is jonesing but just can’t get them – bet you could get $6-7 a box, which is close to a 100% return over 10 months – not a bad deal at all.